Antony and Cleopatra

Original Text

Modern Text

OCTAVIUS CAESAR enters, reading a
letter, with LEPIDUS and their courtiers and
attendants.

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10

CAESAR

You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,

It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate

Our great competitor. From Alexandria

This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes

The lamps of night in revel; is not more
manlike

Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy

More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or

Vouchsafed to think he had partners. You shall find there

A man who is th’ abstract of all faults

That all men follow.

CAESAR

Now you’ll see, Lepidus, that I don’t disdain our noble ally
because of a personal whim. Here’s the news from Alexandra: Antony
fishes, drinks, and celebrates all night. He’s become as frivolous
and self-indulgent as

Ptolemy’s queen, Cleopatra. He rarely attends
to his duties or acknowledges he has partners to be considered.
Here’s a man who is the epitome of all the vices known to man.

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LEPIDUS

I must not think there
are

Evils enough to darken all his goodness.

His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,

More fiery by night’s blackness, hereditary

Rather than purchased, what he cannot change

Than what he chooses.

LEPIDUS

I can’t believe there could be enough vice in the world to
outshine all the good in him. His faults stand out because they must
be compared to all his virtues, like stars that shine brightly
against the dark night sky. They’re more likely to be the result of
inherited weakness than independent choice.

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30

CAESAR

You are too indulgent. Let’s grant, it is not

Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,

To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit

And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,

To reel the streets at noon, and stand the
buffet

With knaves that smell of sweat. Say this becomes him—

As his composure must be rare indeed

Whom these things cannot blemish—yet must Antony

No way excuse his foils when we do bear

So great weight in his lightness. If he filled

His vacancy with his voluptuousness,

Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones

Call on him for ’t. But to confound such time

That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud

As his own state and ours, ’tis to be chid

As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure

And so rebel to judgment.

CAESAR

You’re too forgiving. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it’s
not improper to fool around with Ptolemy’s wife, or to trade a
kingdom for a joke. That it’s fine to engage in drinking matches
with inferiors, or stumble drunkenly through the streets in the
middle of the day, or get into fist fights with sweaty servants.
Even if we said that this behavior suits him—though only a man with
a perfect character could avoid being disgraced by such
antics—there’s no excuse for the extra work we’ve had to take on
while he’s been off amusing himself. If he’s been spending his
leisure time in lustful pursuits, then he’ll be punished with
venereal diseases, and that’s his business. But he’s wasting time
and resources vital to our cause and endangering both his position
and ours. He should be chastised, like any boy who knows what’s
right but chooses to satisfy his desires regardless.